European Parliament / The President : ACTA wrong solution to protect intellectual property. Press Release Strasbourg - European Parliament President Martin Schulz made the following statement after the vote by the European Parliament to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA): "The decision to reject ACTA was not taken lightly. It followed an intensive, inclusive and transparent debate with civil society, business organisations, national parliaments and many other stakeholders. The vote against ACTA was not one against the protection of intellectual property. The majority in the European Parliament is of the opinion that ACTA is a wrong solution, a sentiment shared by millions of citizens. ACTA was negotiated by a group of industrialised countries in a process that provoked complaints for its lack of transparency.
The debate on ACTA demonstrated the existence of European public opinion that transcends national borders. For further information: europarl.president.press@europarl.europa.eu. ACTA rejected by European Union vote. Declaration of Internet Freedom. EU Commissioner Reveals He Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By European Parliament Next Week. The day before the EU's International Trade committee (INTA) recommended that the European Parliament should reject ACTA, the EU commissioner with responsibility for the treaty, Karel De Gucht, had given a speech to its members, trying to win them over.
Although it was short, it turns out to be highly revealing about the European Commission's future ACTA strategy. Here's what he said: If you decide for a negative vote before the European Court rules, let me tell you that the Commission will nonetheless continue to pursue the current procedure before the Court, as we are entitled to do. A negative vote will not stop the proceedings before the Court of Justice. That is, whatever happens next week, the European Commission will wait for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to rule on whether ACTA is compatible with EU law.
If it is found to be incompatible, De Gucht admits that rather than accept this ruling, the European Commission will try to find some trick to circumvent it: Three Strikes Against ACTA In European Parliament Today. Three heavyweight committees in the European Parliament gave their voting recommendations on ACTA today. All three gave the same recommendation: reject ACTA. This means that today, the European Parliament issued three very hard strikes against ACTA. What happened today was the first steps in a long chain that ends with the final vote in all of the European Parliament, which is the vote where ACTA ultimately lives or dies.
If it is defeated on the floor of the European Parliament, then it’s a permakill. Boom, headshot. The committee that “owns” the issue of ACTA, the so-called INTA committee (International Trade), is the committee giving the final recommendation to the European Parliament as a whole. They all voted to recommend rejection of ACTA, and therefore, effectively recommend that the European Parliament kill it dead. Still, it is a sign of changing times. Marielle Gallo. Amelia Andersdotter. The ACTA battle as a whole is far from over, though. EU urged to reject international anti-counterfeiting pact. ACTA and Fundamental Rights. Open Standards consultation needs you! Do you represent an SME? Do you currently do business with government? Do you want to do business with government? On Tuesday, 24th April between 3:30pm and 5:00pm, we need you. Update Thursday 19th April: Eventbrite registration is now open On Tuesday, 24th April, between 3:30pm and 5:00pm (venue details can be found below), we are asking representatives of SMEs to come and talk to us about the Open Standards consultation.
Whether your product is open source or not, how you deal with government and its procurement process will be affected by the outcome of this consultation and we want to make sure we have all sides of the discussion represented. The consultation can be read in full online but we are aware that sometimes there just isn’t time to read pages of consultations. 1. A quick explanation of the key points of the consultation will be given at the beginning of the discussion so you will be equipped to contribute to the debate. EU Parliament Will Vote on ACTA Without Delay! Brussels, March 27th 2012 - The EU Parliament refused to freeze the ACTA debate, and will not refer the agreement to the EU Court of Justice. In a 21 to 5 vote plus 2 abstentions, the Parliament decided to stick to its calendar and will vote on ACTA in June, as originally planned. The Commission's technocratic manoeuvres have not stopped the Parliament, and the door remains open to a swift rejection of ACTA.
After an eventful process where a minority of pro-ACTA MEPs used procedural arguments to delay a decision, the EU Parliament's "International Trade" committee refused to refer ACTA to the EU Court of Justice. Such a referral would have delayed for 18 months the final vote on ACTA. Respecting the original timetable, the rapporteur David Martin (S&D, UK) will now present a draft report to his colleagues on April 25th, 2012. The INTA committee, as well as the other committees working on opinion reports, will also resume their works on this illegitimate agreement. EU Parliament Will Vote on ACTA Without Delay! Brussels, March 27th 2012 - The EU Parliament refused to freeze the ACTA debate, and will not refer the agreement to the EU Court of Justice. In a 21 to 5 vote plus 2 abstentions, the Parliament decided to stick to its calendar and will vote on ACTA in June, as originally planned.
The Commission's technocratic manoeuvres have not stopped the Parliament, and the door remains open to a swift rejection of ACTA. After an eventful process where a minority of pro-ACTA MEPs used procedural arguments to delay a decision, the EU Parliament's "International Trade" committee refused to refer ACTA to the EU Court of Justice.
Such a referral would have delayed for 18 months the final vote on ACTA. Respecting the original timetable, the rapporteur David Martin (S&D, UK) will now present a draft report to his colleagues on April 25th, 2012. This draft report will form the basis of the INTA committee's final recommendation to the rest of the Parliament on whether to consent to ACTA or to reject it. INTA - ACTA assessment.pdf. How the European internet rose up against Acta. Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland sent a letter to his fellow leaders in the EU Friday urging them to reject Acta, reversing Poland's course with the controversial intellectual-property treaty, and possibly taking Europe with them. "I was wrong," Tusk explained to a news conference, confessing his government had acted recklessly with a legal regime that wasn't right for the 21st century.
The reversal came after Tusk's own strong statements in support of Acta and condemnation of Anonymous attacks on Polish government sites, and weeks of street protest in Poland and across Europe. The seeming overnight success came after both years of work by European NGOs, and the spark of the Sopa/Pipa protests in America (which included Wired.com). Acta, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is an international treaty that was negotiated in secret over the span of four years. Meanwhile, Acta was causing furor across Europe as thousands turned out from Slovenia to Sweden to Germany. How the European Internet Rose Up Against ACTA | Threat Level. Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland sent a letter to his fellow leaders in the EU Friday urging them to reject ACTA, reversing Poland’s course with the controversial intellectual-property treaty, and possibly taking Europe with them.
“I was wrong,” Tusk explained to a news conference, confessing his government had acted recklessly with a legal regime that wasn’t right for the 21st century. The reversal came after Tusk’s own strong statements in support of ACTA and condemnation of Anonymous attacks on Polish government sites, and weeks of street protest in Poland and across Europe. The seeming overnight success came after both years of work by European NGOs, and the spark of the SOPA/PIPA protests in America (which included Wired.com). ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is an international treaty that was negotiated in secret over the span of four years. Meanwhile, ACTA was causing furor across Europe as thousands turned out from Slovenia to Sweden to Germany.
ACTA Protest / Anonymous Sweden. ACTA Update VI. Subscribe to this blog About Author Glyn Moody's look at all levels of the enterprise open source stack. The blog will look at the organisations that are embracing open source, old and new alike (start-ups welcome), and the communities of users and developers that have formed around them (or not, as the case may be). Contact Author Email Glyn Twitter Profile Linked-in Profile Yesterday, a disturbing story appeared on the German taz.de site: EU MPs have received thousands of emails from ACTA opponents.
Clearly, if true, that would be a shocking state of affairs. So I contacted the press office of the European Parliament to check out the story. First, that individual MEPs might set up their email clients with rules that junk anything to do with ACTA. The second point is important: that the European Parliament does have general anti-spam rules that catch mass mailings of similar texts. UpdateThe Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter has made an important point here. Media representative urges European Parliament to reassess ACTA to safeguard freedom of expression. Press/Blog | Access. Stop ACTA & TPP! - Never use trade agreements to mess with the Internet! Act on Acta now if you care about democracy and free speech | David Meyer. Acta is the latest copyright enforcement scheme to cause alarm among digital activists. Given its reach, this is understandable. The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement is, despite its name, effectively an international treaty that forces signatories to criminalise "commercial-scale" copyright and trademark infringement.
Some of it covers knock-off merchandise, but most applies to the digital world as well. Many of Acta's provisions already exist in countries such the US and the UK – for example, it makes sure courts can block or take down infringing websites – and the idea is ostensibly to bring the rest of the world in line. However, some elements would go further than existing laws in most of the countries that sign up. One reason for the heightened attention being paid to Acta is the recent derailing of the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Protect IP Act (Pipa) in the US. Acta was the brainchild of the US and Japan. But what remains is troubling on several counts. European Commission : Trade : ACTA - Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Protection and enforcement of intellectual property are crucial for the EU's ability to stimulate innovation and to compete in the global economy.
Intellectual property rights (IPRs) (such as patents, trademarks, designs, copyrights or geographical indications) enable European inventors, creators and businesses to prevent unauthorized exploitation of their creations, and in return to get compensation for their investment. IPRs also offer guarantees to users (e.g., trademarks and geographical indications identify the origin of the goods concerned). Read more on the benefits of IP rights Trade and intellectual property in a nutshell IPR support creativity and innovation. The EU needs to protect these intangible assets for growth and competitiveness. Enforcement of these rights within the EU and outside affects the EU’s growth and jobs. EU trade policy and intellectual property One of the EU's objectives is to improve the protection and enforcement of IP rights in third countries. European Parliament ACTA study. Act on ACTA refers to a European Parliament Trade Committee commissioned study on ACTA (pdf).
The study highlights problematic aspects of ACTA and makes recommendations (see below). According to the study, “unconditional consent would be an inappropriate response”, and “There does not therefore appear to be any immediate benefit from ACTA for EU citizens”. The study confirms ACTA goes beyond current EU legislation. It recommends asking the European Court of Justice an opinion on ACTA. As a result, the INTA study’s recommendations do not provide a solution to all issues, nor do they describe the remaining issues in full. With regards to access to medicines, the INTA study concludes that adding some annotations will solve the problems. There is a huge gap between the paper reality of the INTA study and the reality in the streets: people are dying because they have no access to medicines.
Just meeting our “international obligations on public health” is by far not enough. I’ll be Tweet-chatting next Monday, 30 January « Digital Agenda Commissioner – Neelie Kroes. European Union - Google+ - ACTA - Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement What is ACTA? … On transparency of the negotiation process: - The Commission negotiators continuously informed the public about the objectives and general thrust of the negotiations, since the first round (June 2008). - Summary reports were issued after every negotiation round. Since April 2010, the negotiating text that was being discussed, has been released. This and other relevant information are available at DG Trade website: - Furthermore, the Commission organised four stakeholder conferences on ACTA (the first one took place on 23 June 2008, i.e. a few days before the first round of negotiations and the following ones respectively on 21 April 2009, 22 March 2010 and 25 January 2011, in Brussels) which were open to all - citizens, industry, NGOs and press.
. - In addition to providing the negotiating documents to the INTA Committee, Commissioner De Gucht has participated in three plenary debates. Bastille 2 | Bastille. How to act against ACTA. This page lists different ways to take action against ACTA right now and to learn more about this dangerous agreement. ACTA is a multi-lateral trade agreement which threatens to change the Internet as we know it and puts fundamental freedoms at risk.
The European Parliament will vote on ACTA this Wednesday July 4th and has the occasion to reject it once and for all. You will find on this page different ways you can act to defeat ACTA as a citizen. As a citizen, the main two things to do are: contacting Members of the European Parliament helping spread the word about ACTA. Contacting your Elected Representatives is the most useful thing you can do right until the wednesday's final vote in the European Parliament, last step of the procedure. [edit] How to? To easily get in touch with the right Members of the European Parliament, you can use our PiPhone. You also can use Political Memory to get the contact details of a precise MEP. [edit] Who to contact? [edit] General advice Here are some ideas:
Thousands march in Poland over Acta internet treaty. 26 January 2012Last updated at 15:40 The government says protesters will have their say before the treaty is ratified in Poland Thousands of protesters have taken to Poland's streets over the signing of an international treaty activists say amounts to internet censorship. Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in Tokyo on Thursday. The treaty, known as Acta, aims to establish international standards to enforce intellectual property rights.
But critics say it could curb freedom of expression, and government websites have been hacked in protest. Later on Thursday, hundreds of people took to the streets of the eastern city of Lublin to express their anger over the treaty. Several marches had taken place in cities across the nation on Wednesday, says the BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw. Crowds of mostly young people held banners with slogans such as "no to censorship" and "a free internet". Österreich unterzeichnet ACTA am Donnerstag. ACTA and HR 1981 are the Next Major Privacy Threats. What's Wrong with ACTA Week. Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. _acta_series_4_20120119. EU Council Quietly Adopts ACTA, By Hiding It In An Agriculture And Fisheries Meeting. Live Broadcast. Last Parliament Standing: Europe Final Stronghold Of ACTA Critics. Lawrence Lessig Extended Interview Pt. 1 - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 12/13. Lobbying’s Hidden Influence. The Privatization of Copyright Lawmaking.
St10837-re01.en10. Say NO to ACTA. Acta-cemetery.jpg (JPEG Image, 6753x512 pixels) - Scaled (14%) Multilateral anti-counterfeiting trade accord signed in Tokyo. ACTA signed – EU deaf-mute. Will ACTA Be Killed in the EU? Samstag wird ACTA beschlossen. Supports an ECJ opinion on ACTA. Deck.ly post by clarinette « TweetDeck. Leak: How EU prepares next ACTA “technical round”